Introducing LVI Pinot Noir
LVI is our proprietary brand where our focus is to partner with the best winemakers around the world. Our first project is a collaboration between Rose & Arrow, a highly regarded boutique Oregon winery and taste56 with the goal of creating a Pinot Noir that speaks to the special terroir of the Willamette Valley, the result of the Missoula floods and volcanic activity which occurred thousands of years ago.
The name, LVI, alludes to the Roman numeral equivalent of 56, a playful nod to the taste56 brand. When I started taste56, my focus was to not only represent the best wines from individual terroirs, but to make a proprietary label that was uniquely our own expression. It did not hurt that I have always admired the elegance Rose & Arrow wines and the promise of Oregon’s potential as one of the great sites to grow Pinot Noir. In 2023, alongside Felipe Ramirez, the winemaker at Rose & Arrow, and Pedro Parra, the famed terroir specialist, I was able to blend our first LVI wine and learn quite a bit as well.
The morning that I met with the team, we started at the vineyard first to provide an overview of the terroir. First, Pedro provided everyone a primer on the intricacies of terroir before we were taken on a tour of several 6-foot-deep holes where one could visually see vine roots having worked their way through varying rock stratum. Even though each hole was within the same overall vineyard, and some within a stone’s throw from each other, they featured different rock & soil compositions.
What seemed to me just a fun exercise to start of the day, was illuminating by day’s end. When I arrived at the winery, there were between 15-20 barrels to taste from different vineyard sites, each either mostly volcanic, or sedimentary based soils. Five minutes into tasting, I found that there was such a stark difference between samples, it was easy to discern their origin. While I always appreciated the importance terroir, this is was a palpable example. The Pinot Noir grown in sedimentary soil displayed bright red fruit, and crisp acidity, while the vines that were grown on volcanic soils featured darker fruit, more rounded texture, and an earthy character. The experience was a testament to the power of terroir, whereas wines made from even neighboring sites can be vastly different dependent on the depth of the vines and make-up of the earth.
Our Pinot Noir is a blend of four tiny neighboring vineyard sites, 60% of which feature more black cherry and forest floor characteristic of volcanic soil complimented by 40% of the blend made from higher pitched red cherry and mineral driven fruit from vines grown on sedimentary soils. The unique respective qualities of each site combine to create a wine of depth, energy, and a sense of place . I am excited for you to try LVI. Having worked at a vineyard, but never made my own blend, LVI was a labor of love that I hope comes through with every sip.